


20 Facts About Komatsu

by Flyndragon



Category: Toriko (Anime & Manga)
Genre: 20 Things, Blatant Speculation, Gen, Headcanon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 03:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1536419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flyndragon/pseuds/Flyndragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The personal history of Komatsu in twenty facts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	20 Facts About Komatsu

1\. Komatsu’s neighbors think that he’s crazy, running off with all sorts of bishoukuya, and think that he’s going to end up dead. Most people think that Komatsu is just unsuited for the wild in general. The cooks that work under him think that it’s good that Toriko-san is there to protect him. Toriko thinks it’s admirable, how well his little chef has adapted to going dangerous places and doing dangerous things.

Komatsu is the only person alive who believes that he was born for this life.

 

2\. It is well known that active bishoukuya make terrible parents and Komatsu’s are no exception.

When he is four years old they leave him with his grandmother.

They never come back for him.

 

3\. Komatsu’s grandma teaches him everything. She shows him how to write and read and do his maths. But, most importantly, she shows him how to cook. Before he enters kindergarten, Komatsu can cook rice, boil eggs and clumsily make onigiri, which he packs every day for his lunch.

Komatsu’s grandma tells him that one day he’ll be a better cook than her. He doesn’t believe her, of course. But imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Komatsu has always tried to cook like his grandma

 

4\. Komatsu is in the third grade when he meets Buck. Buck is bigger than him and better at sports and far more popular than Komatsu. And Buck hates him. Buck always calls him a runt and a pussy. He trips Komatsu in gym and calls him a cocksucker. Buck pushes him into mud and puddles on the way home and kicks him out of the small play area during recess. He gets half the class to laugh at Komatsu when he bothers to answer a question out loud, so that eventually he stops even trying.

Komatsu tries to ignore it. He tries to do what all his teachers say and be a better person. But then buck says that it’s no wonder nobody likes him when even his parents left because they hated him so much.

Komatsu sees red, and jumps Buck.

At the end of it all, Buck gets a broken nose and Komatsu gets two weeks suspension.

 

5\. Komatsu gets his first job the summer before he enters Jr. High. It’s 350¥ per hour bussing tables at a small diner that mostly serves locals. When he’s not busy, they let him sit in the kitchen and watch the chefs do their thing. Once, when their second short order cook doesn’t show for the dinner rush, they let him work half a shift behind the flat top.

As he falls asleep that night, Komatsu can only think that he never wants to do anything except cook ever again.

 

6\. Halfway through the 7th grade Komatsu has saved up 40,000¥, which he think might just be enough to get his very own set of proper kitchen knives. So the next Saturday he has free, he carefully gathers his savings and takes the train to the nearest city.

It has an outstanding food market, but that isn’t what he’s there for, so he walks right through without stopping and finds a large Kitchen supply store only a few blocks away. He goes in and comes out three hours later devoid of most of him money, but in possession of a brand new set of knives.

He admires them all the way home and sharpens them that night, oil covering his fingers as he moves his shining blades across the whetstone.  
As beautiful as they are sitting still, they are absolutely gorgeous moving in his hands.

 

7\. Komatsu’s favorite food is, to this day, his grandma’s special secret miso soup. It’s the one recipe which she never gives to him, just giving him and wink and saying ‘Why, that would ruin it!’.

Komatsu can never make a full course menu because he would have to put that dish on it and he doesn’t want to be laughed at by the entire culinary world.

 

8\. Komatsu gets his first friends during his first year of high school. They aren’t the strongest, or the smartest, or the most popular of kids, but that’s ok, because Komatsu isn’t any of those things either. And they get picked on too, but at least Komatsu is no longer alone in his misery.

On the weekends they go out into the woods and drink and Komatsu likes that too. He feels like for the first time he’s part of something, and that sense of belonging is enough for him to ignore the disappointed face his grandmother seems to always wear now.

When his friends ask him to bake brownies with little green leaves in it, he doesn’t question them. The brownies turn out delicious. Of course.

 

9\. The first person Komatsu ever kisses is Buck. They make out in a dark corner of a stranger’s house, the deep, pulsing music matching the beat of Komatsu’s heart. Komatsu can’t help but notice how Buck’s mouth tastes of absinthe and cigarettes.

Thinking back on that day, Komatsu can honestly say that his favorite part was when he made pot baked goods earlier that afternoon.

 

10\. Komatsu loses his virginity at 15 in the back room of seedy bar to a middle aged man he hadn’t met before that night.

He limps back to his home and takes a very long shower. He turns the heat up until it burns, until he can no longer feel the tears he knows are falling down his face. When the water turns cold and he is forced to emerge, his grandma is waiting in the kitchen. She has a bowl of miso soup waiting for him.

When he goes back to school two days later, he doesn’t have any friends. Komatsu thinks he may have never had any at all. Friends, he thinks wouldn’t have left him there alone.

 

11\. Komatsu cooks and it helps. He cooks old recipes and new ones, food that looks like art and food that looks like shit. All of it is delicious.

For the first time since he purchased his knives, Komatsu thinks seriously about cooking for a living. He gets a job as a cook in the diner he worked in as a kid and keeps picking up shifts unit he’s busy every day from dawn until dusk.

It takes nearly a year but eventually – eventually the loneliness and the memories fade. His grandmother hugs him one morning as he’s excitedly explaining the new recipe he’s developing and thanks him for finally coming back.

 

12\. He leaves home at the age of 17, destined for that great big city next to that wonderful market. His grandmother has known this was coming, because his grandmother, it seems, knows more about him than he does.

“Komatsu,” she says, seeing him off at the train station, “Promise me that no matter how popular you get- no matter how many people want to taste your cooking, you’ll find time to come and cook for me,”.

Komatsu pulls her into a tight hug just as the train pulls into the station.

“Of course,” he whispers, “of course.”

 

13\. Komatsu picks up two different jobs at two different restaurants, one a four star luxury resort and on a no star hole in the wall. He loves both of them, even if the head chef at the four star place has made him cry on three separate occasions. But that’s also ok, because after his shift there ends he heads on down to the less pretty part of the futuristic city and works out his frustrations with a flat top and copious amounts of bacon.

He has no social life, gets only occasional sleep, and for nearly a year subsists on cold leftovers from his jobs and things that he can reliably buy from a gas station. But he’s cooking, and that means that he’s happy.

 

14\. Komatsu had thought during his last few years of high school that he would never be able to make friends again, but only a couple of months into work he is proven incredibly wrong. In fact, he gains friends exponentially, it seems. Coworkers, customers, superiors, suppliers, and anyone else who passes through the restaurants he works at quickly grow to love him. People always ask how he does it, but honestly, Komatsu is as clueless as the next person.

It’s just impossible to dislike him, even if he’s a little weird. But, then again, Komatsu sets a very good example for accepting weird people.

 

15\. He becomes the head chef of the Hotel Gourmet almost by accident. He just keeps taking positions as they are abandoned for whatever reason, and within three years Komatsu has worked on fish, meat, pastries, salads and sauces. He knows the kitchen better than his apartment and knows the name, age, marital status and interests of every person who works in the kitchen and quite a few who don’t. He spends more time there than the elderly head chef and it’s no surprise to anyone when the restaurant has a good year and Komatsu is promoted to sous chef.

People are even less surprised when their current head chef retires and Komatsu, at the tender age of 22, takes over for him. The management of the Hotel Gourmet is skeptical until, six months and a menu change later, the Hotel Gourmet gains its fifth star.

 

16\. Komatsu doesn’t really give much thought to romantic relationships. His second sous chef occasionally ribs him about how he needs to get laid. He hasn’t done anything like that since that first, disastrous night in high school, so naturally he sucks at flirting. He ins’t really into girls, he knows that much, but when he tries to attract men he fails miserably. So, after a few months of trying he makes a firm decision to stop.

He has food and he has friends. And that, he thinks, is all that he really needs.

 

17\. Komatsu only takes two days off from work every year. He wakes up early on the first day, leaving his apartment quickly to buy some choice ingredients from the World Kitchen before taking a train back home.

He gets there before noon strikes and spends the rest of the day cooking what could only be called a feast for them both to share. They eat together, grandmother and grandson and so much more to each other. If food is truly improved by who you are with, Komatsu once says, then these must be the best meals I’ve ever cooked.

They end up talking late into the night and Komatsu falls asleep best on those nights, when he can hear his grandmother breathing through the thin walls of his childhood home.

He keeps up this tradition for 7 years. After that it is no longer necessary.

 

18\. Komatsu meets Toriko when he is 25 years old. He has been an executive chef for 3 years and has been working in restaurants for over a decade now. And as much as he has enjoyed his life, Komatsu has never felt so alive as when his belly is stuffed with the meat of a gator he witnessed being hunted down, in the most dangerous place he has ever been.

“Toriko-san, do you want to be friends?” he asks as they both laze around the campfire, bellies bulging.

“Yeah, sure,” Toriko says casually.

“Really!?” Komatsu asks.

“Yeah bro,” Toriko says, contentedly, “Y’know, for being such a wimpy dude, you’re kinda awesome.”

Komatsu feels the warm glow cradled inside him break free into the biggest grin of his life.

“And,” Toriko says with an air of finality, “you cook good.”

 

19\. Knowing Toriko leads to meeting Coco, who become the most loyal of friends with a hug and a fish. And then comes Sunny, who becomes his friend the same way Toriko did, with a shared meal and a smile.

And after that, long after, Zebra comes along, big and scary, and Komatsu at first doesn’t think he can become friends with this being who is more beast than man. But just as Komatsu years ago suspected that he would ever make friends again, Zebra becomes his protector, ally, hopeful partner and, in the end, his friend. Komatsu doesn’t think that Zebra has many people he would consider friends and feels honored to count himself as one of them.

His relationship with the Kings is weird and wonderful but he loves them more than anyone else left in the world. He would trust them with his life and, in fact, has on several occasions.

Komatsu can’t offer them that. All he has to give is a hug and a good meal. But that’s more than enough. Komatsu trusts the Kings with his life, but the Four Heavenly Kings trust Komatsu with their souls.

 

20\. 25 years ago, a man and a woman sat in the middle of the woods at night, exhausted but unafraid. In their arms they held a newborn baby boy, cone headed and bald but beautiful to them.

“What should we name him?” the man asked the woman.

And the woman felt the leaves of autumn under her. She listened and heard the distant cries of some ferocious beast. She thought about the people she held in her heart and the people she knew her husband kept in his.

But in the end the only thought she lingered on was the smell of the corpse of pine trees that had sheltered her as she gave birth and the small hut made of pine boughs her husband had constructed as her child’s birthplace. And then she knew.

“Komatsu,” she said, “his name will be Komatsu.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, hope you enjoyed! Also, take note that I have only read the Toriko manga up to the start of the shining gourmani arc, so if I have gotten anything wrong about Komatsu's personal history that has been revealed later on, please, let me know!  
> Feel free to leave any type of comment! I like to be like Komatsu and welcome even haters.


End file.
